[NU Sports] NCAA Poised to Expand to Field of 96; NIT Slated for Extinction

[hakirsch at aol.com]

I do like the field of 64 (not 65-why make 1 school have to go 7-0 when everyone else need be 6-0).  Yes it probably is 32 too many teams since it is so rare that any low seeded teams go anywhere and really don't have a decent shot at winning the title. But it helps to put some of these schools on the map,particularly with an early round upset.  I never heard of cleveland state or austin peay until they pulled early round upsets.  It also gives some hope and meaning to more regular season games. (I doubt at 32
there would be as  much interest in the  NU  games from
this  list group)
But at 96 ,making the tourney is no big deal and it would really render so many regular season games meaningless as you are only eliminating such a small percentage like the NHL.  

Harry

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Maycock <tkmaycock at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 09:46:21 
To: <nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com>
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] NCAA Poised to Expand to Field of 96;
	NIT Slated for Extinction

> So what is essentially 'pure' about 65 ? 

Nothing at all. As I believe I said earlier, I think 65 is too many. And 96 is just stupid. 

There's nothing "purist" about it. It's just a question of what makes sense. 

The tournament should either include all teams, or only include those teams who had very good years and have at least an outside shot at winning the whole thing. 

You can make a case for either approach. But if you go with the latter option, I don't think it makes any sense to invite more than, say, 32 teams, and even that is probably pushing it. 

I took a quick look at last year, and it appears the highest seed to make it to the final 16 was 12th ranked Arizona, who were promptly *destroyed* by 1 seed Louisville. 

So, through a bit of a fluke, Louisville essentially got a free pass in that round, while every other team in the round of 16 had to face real challenges. What's the sense in that?

Further, the final 8 teams all came from the top 12 seeds in the entire tournament. I would guess that's not uncommon. We could have done away with an entire 4-day weekend of games and arrived at the same pool of teams. 

There's no question that the 65 team tournament is entertaining--those early round games are often the most entertaining, and everyone enjoys the Cinderalla stories and the upsets. And the  cascade of money from those first few rounds is undeniable, in revenue to conferences and schools, to gamblers, to networks, and so on. 

But ultimately, those extra games (and upsets) distort the ideal of crowning a true champion. 

Tom


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